A Silver of Hope
by RealHuntress18
Summary: Katherine Silver just wanted to keep her mutant status under the radar. Unfortunately, a demigod decided to try to take over the world. You can't really say no to Nick Fury. Rated T for mild swearing and somewhat graphic descriptions of battle. ?/OC Part One of a series.
1. Mutant Problems

**_Disclaimer:_**** Before I begin, I would like to clarify that I do not own any aspect of marvel. I own my OC and her story.**

**I started this in October and I'm really hoping that you'll enjoy this one!**

* * *

**Chapter One **

**Mutant Problems**

* * *

Sunlight peeked through my blinds, temporarily blinding me as I opened my eyes. I have to wake up, I thought, before groaning and checking the time. Of course, it's eight o'clock in the morning. I got up and took my normal stride to bathroom to take a look in the mirror. The girl who stared back at me looked exhausted. My hazel-green eyes were tired and slightly baggy from working a ten hour shift at the library. My chocolate brown hair seemed extremely dull and lifeless. Other than the obvious tiredness of my appearance, I looked just as young as I was.

I made my way to the kitchen to lay something out for breakfast. Usually, I would cook, but its been a long week and I've been extremely fatigued from work. I set out some poptarts and cereal, waiting for my twin brothers and friends to finally make it to the kitchen.

Almost a year back, I was a wreck. I had almost finished my third year of college when I got the news. My father had gone missing. It was hard considering everything that had happened to my family. My mom had died in a plane crash just two years before, and I had to move back to New Jersey to care for my brothers just until they go off to college in a year or so.

Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, aka the shadiest man that I had ever met, claims that he has a team working around the clock to find him. It had been a very peculiar way that he has went missing. He'd been in the middle of his life's work. Figuring out my genetic mutation.

Yes, I'm a mutant.

My mom was one before me, the ability to control certain things with the mind. Like objects, emotions, and as I grew older my mother had seen to it that I wasn't able to access the rest of my powers because I was dangerous.

As always, Jake was the first to resurface from his room already dressed for school. Jake and Nathan were identical in looks only, with their smoky brown short curly hair and their icy blue eyes. They both had my dad's handsome features, while the only difference between them and I was our eyes. I got my hazel-green ones from my mom. Jake and Nathan had completely different personalities. Jake was the responsible one. After our parents were out of the picture, he stepped up big time. He does better in school, helps me at home, and tries not to get into any trouble. Nathan on the other hand, is reckless. He parties late, hangs out with different girls every week, and sometimes belittles his family in front of company. This behavior only started since our dad disappeared and I still don't have a handle on it.

"Morning, Kate." He said, grabbing a package of poptarts and loaded the treats in the toaster. Another difference to the boys being that they shortened my name with two different nicknames. Jake called me Kate and Nate called me Kat.

"Morning, Jake." I replied brightly. My eyes widened slowly, as the box of poptarts started to float in the air. Jake caught them and pushed them back down quickly, before the crowd of people could enter.

Nathan entered with his normal posse of friends, Roman and Mike. They were obviously having a conversation about girls, and I was not about to hear any of it.

"Hey, Kat?" I turned my head to Nathan. "I'll be late tonight."

I groaned, "Come on, you know I work late on Fridays! You went out last Friday." We shared a look. It was one of those moments when I saw that bit of emotion in his expression. He was obviously upset, and I got it. I didn't like his methods of dealing, but I wasn't a shrink, I was his older sister. "Fine."

"However, I'll cancel my plans tonight for a chance, Kitty." Roman flirted, as he leant on the counter behind me.

This, I was not a fan of. Getting hit on by my brother's idiotic and nubile friends. "Go away, Roman." I murmured dryly, not looking at the teen.

"She digs me." He says from behind me to Mike. I rolled my eyes and continued to make my coffee. They'd be gone soon.

* * *

Two hours later, I was leaving for work at the library across town. As I was grabbing my car keys, my doorbell rung. Immediately after the door swung open, I sighed in annoyance. I hadn't seen Nick Fury since he sent Agent Hill to assess me for my database file. What would he be doing here, unless ... he had news on my father. "Fury," I greet with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. "Nice to see you again." I didn't ask how he found my new address, considering it's not even under my real name. It's just Nick, he's bound to figure out this shit, one way or another.

"Good afternoon, Miss Silver." Fury says back, with that eerily calm and collected tone. He moves closer into the doorframe and looks around cautiously. "It seems to me that you're still having the same control issues."

"What-" I turn to my living room and sigh in exasperation. In my fit of mixed emotions, several items in my living room were floating in the air. "Shit." I focus on calming my emotions and most of the items found their way back to their original spot.

I sighed, opening the door wider to let him in. He stepped forward and walked in. I locked the door and moved to lean against the kitchen counter.

"You have his research about me, don't you?"

"Correct, Miss Silver. We have the DNA test results and his other projects on your mutation. I've come to bring up the Avengers Initiative."

"I thought that was scrapped." Fury gives me a look of irritation. I hacked SHIELD's files four months ago. Sue me. "I was curious." He shouldn't be surprised, my father helped build their headquarters security system. "Well don't tell me that you came all this way to discuss an idea."

"Your file reads that you're potentially-"

I cut him off, "useful to the team. I get it. I have my father's brain and my mom's freak genes."

Fury nods. "More or less. I'm not going to lie to you, we had a problem on our base four days ago. If we can't fix this problem, the world is going to need your help."

"The world? I haven't even learned how to control my powers yet." I argued, with slight exasperation. The world needs my help! Give me a freaking break! I'm trying to keep a low profile.

"We'll train you." He answered simply.

"I can't just-" I began to protest.

His cool gaze was fixed on me, and it was disapproving. "This is what your father wanted."

I sigh and rub my left temple. This is exactly what he wanted. This is why he spent so much time with me. He wanted me to use my powers to help people. When I didn't say anything, Fury continued, "I'll send an agent to collect you tomorrow morning." He was about to turn to leave when I panicked.

"Fury, I can't just leave the boys here!" I hissed.

"Its all taken care of, Miss Silver." Fury told me calmly. "They will be well taken care of. The agent will be here at around the same time."

He then passed me the folder he had been holding. "This is your briefing packet. It will answer any of your questions. See you soon, Miss Silver." And with that, he just disappeared down the hall.

Opening the packet, there were the familiar copies of the files I had read last year about the six others on the team. One was about Captain Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, that had been frozen in the ice since the forties, who was a legend. It was really the only file that I paid much attention to. I checked out Natasha and Clint, then Banner and Thor. I skimmed over the file of Tony Stark. The last one was of me. There were various photographs, a timeline of the most significant events in my life, and a copy of the file that my dad kept of me. My personality profile was shocking to say the least, I wasn't aware that I was self-assured, potentially volatile, or dangerous. However, I did know that my powers were influenced by my emotions, and what the hell does level 4 combat training mean? Apparently, that's my level of combat training. Is that bad?

In short, a self-sustaining energy cube was apparently stolen by some douchebag Norse God, and the government needed my help. While my dad researched to help me control my powers, I just wanted him to fix me.

I wanted to be normal.

But that was the easy option. I had to do something, if not for the people, then for him. So as I made my decision, I did what I had to do. I took an extended leave at work. Hours later, I was leaning my elbows on the island in the kitchen, tapping my fingers nervously. Jake was due home any minute now, and I had to tell him something. I can't just leave him without an explanation, Jake was finally starting to have a handle on his depression.

When I heard keys jiggle through the door, I tapped my knuckles nervously against the counter. Jake opened and closed the door, and I heard the sound of him dropping his bag on the couch. He came straight to my direction, in the kitchen.

"Hey, Jake." I said, watching him go for the fridge. "Ah-no! Wash your hands first!" I scolded, sounding like my mom. "That's gross."

He sighed dramatically, before moving to the hallway bathroom. When he came back, I was still in my business stance. He grabbed a can of coke out of the fridge, before popping it open. When he noticed my staring, he paused.

"What?"

"Er, nothing." I said, too quickly.

"Kate, spit it out." My brother pushed.

"I have to leave for a week or two." I bit my lip, gauging his reaction. "Look, I can't explain everything, but I need you to trust me."

"Why?"

"The uh ... government, they need my help." I said slowly.

"The government?" My brother fumed. "Kate, you know what they did to you the last time! I thought we agreed that we would lay low-"

I cut the kid off mid-rant, "Jacob! Calm down! They're not the same people. They worked with dad ... and if I helped them, I can get some more information about him."

Jake sighed, "What do they need you to do?"

"Well ... to sum it all up, save the world." I shrugged with a sheepish smile.

"From what?"

"That, I can't tell you. It's Classified." He sighed in annoyance. "Just know that I will be fine and you guys will be taken care of."

"When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow afternoon." I ran my hand through my hair, before continuing. "Look, you and Nathan are almost practically adults..." I then thought about Nathan. "in a legal sense. You know the rules."

He waved me off, repeating the only three rules I set. "Don't burn my house down, stay out of my room, and I'll be watching." Jake then got a thoughtful look in his eyes. "How are you always watching, anyway?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Literally." I pulled out my baby. I turned the portable device on and showed him the live feed of the apartment. I smirked, enjoying my brother's face. "What is that?" I laid it on the table and pushed it forward to give him a better look. "Surveillance! You created a surveillance system?"

I scoffed, "What did you expect? I can't trust Nathan, and you have your moments. This baby's been here for almost a year now."

I watched as Jake's eyebrows flitted together in realization. "That's why I never got away with anything!"

I looked on in amusement at my brother's reevaluation of every prank, every party, and every sneakout that they had ever gotten caught.

"Hey, we can't all be invincible." I teased, earning a smile from him.

"I'm gonna miss you." He admitted.

"I promise I'll be back as soon as possible." As I stared at him, I remembered something. "Do you remember where I put the glocks?"

"Yeah, sure. Why?"

"I need you guys to stay safe. At least until I get back." I declared, staring into my brother's confused gaze.

"Its been a year, Kate. Could they still possibly be a threat?" Jake questioned.

"I don't know. But I need to be reassured that you guys can defend yourselves."

After a really awkward talk about strangers with Jacob, I went to my room to grab my latest creation, my idea pad. It was my life, wrapped up in a small device. It was smaller than the smallest tablet and bigger than the largest smartphone. It was only activated by my voice and fingerprint analysis.

I had been working on a tracking device. I installed it in their phones to keep me connected with my brothers no matter what. My father and I also created the design for the microchip tracking device in the back of their necks. Embarrassingly, we had to put them under an anesthetic to insert them, but it was necessary. They were the only normal ones in the family and they needed to be protected against those who wanted to use them to hurt me.

That night, I spent my time getting some things together. A change of clothes, my tablet, and mine and my father's notes on gamma radiation. He wrote the majority of his life's work in there; how he tracked down my mother, personal things about how they fell in love, the possibilities of what I could be when he found out that my mother was pregnant. The rest were results of tests and samples taken from mine and my mother's blood to make a comparison.

* * *

After a really awkward goodbye to my brothers, I left my apartment with a rather _familiar_ man.

"So if I'm understanding correctly, I use mine and my father's research to find the cube in exchange for information on my father?" I asked, just to clarify what exactly I was getting into here. The people on this list of "Avengers" were a hell of a lot smarter and heroic than me, yet here I was, granting my permission to use my intelligence to find an intergalactic cube to Agent Coulson.

"Exactly, Miss Silver." Coulson answered me, as we stepped out of the town car in front of a very high-tech jet. I knew the model; Quinjet HT-500. It was a carrier jet that carried tactical teams and the most exclusive one in the western hemisphere. Just standing in front of one was giving goosebumps.

"The Quinjet HT-500." I marveled out loud. "You guys must have some friends in some pretty high places. There's only three on this side of the planet."

"Something like that." Coulson quipped vaguely. I was beginning to think that vague answers were his thing, not that I minded anyway. I was too busy nerding out over the jet.

"Right." I noticed Coulson standing there with a proud look on his face. "Who colored your rainbow?"

Coulson gave me a look at my choice of words (causing me to blush slightly) then proudly informed me of who was joining us on our flight. "Captain Steve Rogers will be joining us on our flight to the headquarters. He's one of the greatest legends of our time."

"Oh, I know plenty about the Captain. My mom met him in passing once. She told me that he was the only man (in the 40s) that didn't regard her like a freak." I mused, remembering my mother's story about her encounter with Captain America. Mine and my mother's mutation slows down our aging process. I'll look like I'm twenty five, twenty years from now. My father searched endlessly to speed up my aging process, but discovered that he couldn't do so without the 80% chance that it could fail, meaning I could age too rapidly and die.

"Farrah Silver was an honorable woman. She's still missed." Coulson offers, to try and eliminate any sadness that might have slid into my expression.

"Thank you." I threw in gratefully. "Phil." I walked in the Jet and took a look around as Phil stood at the door, waiting for the Super soldier.

I think I would have liked Agent Coulson, had I believed that there wasn't more to my job than SHIELD had asked of me. I mean, come on, I'm not stupid. They could have found any other smart person to help them find the cube. It just so happens that all of the science experts on the team have some sort of useful ability or perk to them.

While I was contemplating my thoughts about SHIELD, I was interrupted by the voices of two men conversing outside the Jet. I recognized Agent Coulson to be one of them, so I assumed that Captain Rogers was standing outside of the cabin. I was actually glad that I had went on ahead and retreated to the cabin. I mean, what do you say to a super soldier that was frozen 70 years, who knew your mom?

I turned my back away from the door and focused on the interior of the Jet. Admittedly, all the cool toys were in the front, not really giving me much to admire. There were a few seats with belts in the Jet lining both walls with bags under them. Parachutes, I guess. Footsteps coming closer to me broke me through my thoughts. I immediately turned around without much thought and my eyes rested on Captain Steve Rogers.

While I knew of the science that made him 'super', the Captain pretty much looked like the all-american soldier (from the 40s, as you can tell.) His blonde hair was combed and slicked back, he was fair-skinned, most likely about six inches taller than me, and he had so much body muscle that his height wasn't the only reason that he towered over me. While his build was intimidating, something about his blue eyes were innocent, despite being touched by the effects of the war. Somehow, he looked friendly, despite the business posture that he expressed in front of me. He was definitely was I was expecting, though my imagination didn't quite do him any justice.

He was very attractive. My mother's description of his post-serum physique was quite inadequate compared to what I was looking at.

I briefly glanced at Coulson, who was in the middle of his burst of excitement, to introduce us both. "Captain Rogers, this is Katherine Silver."

"Ma'am." The Captain held out his hand for me to shake, "I've heard a lot about you, Ms. Silver."

"Call me Kate." I correct quickly, not digging the whole ma'am thing.

"I did hear about your father's research on the cube. You're going to help find it." The Captain stated, as we went to take our seats for take off. Coulson went off to clear the pilots for take off.

"I believe so. My father worked with the tesseract." I nodded along with my words. "Everything I learned about gamma radiation, I learned from him."

"You sound just like her, you know?" Captain blurted out. I paused, not saying anything, casting my eyes to the ground. A moment passed before the Captain began to apologize. "I-I didn't mean to- that came out wrong."

I looked up and dismissed it. "I'm uh- fine." I waved my hand in dismissal with a soft smile. "Forgotten."

When Coulson returned, he held a tablet-like device with a screen that held several video files. I opened my share sensor and bumped devices with him, downloading his files. I was overwhelmed by the three different screens. One with a blond male by the name of Thor wielding a large hammer, a Hulked-out Banner, and footage of a thinner black haired man in similar clothing as Thor attacking the base and stealing the tesseract. I enlarged the one that interested me the most.

The incident that started this whole mess.

In the twenty minutes it took to watch the entire video, I realized two things. One, what we were dealing with isn't even from this world. And two, I wasn't even sure if I had the guts to do what I promised.

* * *

**That's it! The first chapter. The second is almost finished and will be up depending on how I feel thursday. I will also reveal the face claim of the twins next one!**


	2. Gamma Troubles

**Nathan and Jacob Silver - Logan Lerman**

**Marvel is awesome, truly, but the plot and awesome supers belong to Josh Whedon and Stan Lee. I only own my lovely character. Just not her face. I borrowed that from my lady crush.**

**Chapter Two**

_Gamma Troubles_

I retreated to the back of the cabin with my tablet and when I realized that Jacob was online, so I decided to video chat with him. After about three rings, Jacob actually picked up.

"Hey, Jake." His smile was forced and awkward as he greeted me in return. "What's going on over there?"

"The usual. I'm home. I'm thinking about ordering a pizza for dinner." He says, trying to sound content.

"Why don't you invite Kevin over? Or Willa?" I offer. There was no reason that my little brother should have to be home alone on a friday night.

"They're actually on a date."

I raised my eyebrow. "Together?"

"Yup." Nate confirmed. "They promised to come through after. Till then it's video games and pizza." Now my smile was forced. "What about you?"

"Flying to base." I rolled my eyes.

Nate smirked at my annoyance. "You _hate_ flying."

My smile was genuine again. "Not on _this_ bad boy."

He chuckles, "You're such a nerd."

"Takes one to know one." I quip childishly. "I'm about 40 minutes out. When I get there, I'm gonna be busy. I might forget to call, so just call me."

"Alright," He says flippantly.

"Promise me." I say sternly.

"I promise."

"'Kay, I'll talk to you later, Jake." I forced a smile on my face. Jake did the same and we said our goodbyes before ending the call. I stood up and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear and made my way back to Coulson and Captain Rogers.

"Not so much." Coulson commented as they chatted presumably about Dr. Banner. "When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking."

At Steve's blank look at the pop-culture reference, I spoke up, "Practically a genius." Steve nods at the clarification.

"I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you, officially." Coulson gushes. I resist the urge to giggle and take a seat opposite of Rogers. Steve smiles dutifully at Coulson. "I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping." I made an amused face from my seat and checked out the miniature cameras that I set up around my apartment building.

Unfortunately, the superintendent thought that if I were to set up a state of the art security in the building that it was okay to raise rent a hundred dollars. Anyway, I was pleased to see that as promised, Fury sent two security detail agents to my building. I checked all twenty cameras, and decided to give it a rest.

When I was finished, Coulson informed me that we were being cleared for landing. Rogers and Coulson took their seats and strapped themselves in and I did the same. When we arrived at base, there seemed to be a lot of agents and staff around. I assume that Fury wanted all hands on deck for this mission. As we exited the jet, I noticed a familiar redhead making her way toward us. I remember her from when I was being getting the eval from Agent Hill. She was shadowing her as a precaution.

"Agent Romanoff, you remember Ms. Silver." Coulson says, and she nods. I assume she's going to want to speak later though and maybe catch up.

"Captain Rogers." Coulson introduces Romanoff to the captain.

"Ma'am?" Steve greets in a business tone.

"Hi." Natasha says casually to the man. As usual, Natasha manages to maintain her cool facade, even around one of the most important legends of history. "Coulson, they need you on the bridge. They're about to start the face trace."

"See you there." Coulson walked off en route to do his job, leaving me and Rogers with Natasha.

"What's it been, like four months?" I comment to Natasha about being M.I.A. as we walk over the the railing. I feel the Captain following us hesitantly.

"I've been working a lot lately. I'm not allowed personal cell phones on missions anymore." The pointed look did me in. I chuckled as I remembered what happened the last time I mistakenly called her on a mission.

"In my defense, I had no idea you were on a mission." Nat rolls her eyes and ignores me, turning to the Captain.

"There was quite the buzz around here,finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon." Natasha joked. "Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" I could tell that the deadly redhead was highly amused.

He looks between us. "Trading Cards?"

"They're vintage. He's very proud." Romanoff replies.

I look around the boat curiously, considering the fact that I had never actually been on it before. I see a confused and nervous looking man walking around. As I squinted to eyes to get a better look, they slightly widened. It was Dr. Banner. As a teen I practically idolized his work, so it was completely normal for the teenager in me to fangirl quietly. God, was this what Coulson looked like a few moments ago to the Captain?

"Dr. Banner." Captain greeted, with his hand outreached for a handshake.

I decided that I'd have my time with Banner in the lab. I decided to talk to Natasha while I waited to be escorted in the main area. "I heard about Barton." At her silence, I continued, "I'm sure wherever he is, that he knows we're coming. You have nothing to worry about. His life is in the hands of some of the greatest minds in the world."

She glances at me with a raised eyebrow, "Cocky much?"

I pinched my fingers together mockingly, before saying, "_Very_ much."

Natasha rolls her eyes at me and I follow her over to the Captain and Banner.

"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe." Natasha tells them, looking a little smug.

Suddenly the Helicarrier starts shaking as it prepares to fly. "Is this is a submarine?"

Dr. Banner smiles sardonically."Really? They wanted me in a submerged pressurized metal container?"

They both move closer to the edge of the Helicarrier. Four huge lift propellers mounted onto the sides emerge. Steve watches in awe as Banner smiles.

"Oh, no." Dr. Banner chuckles. "This is much worse." He turns and I immediately step forward.

"Dr. Banner, this is-" Natasha starts to introduce me, but Dr. Banner interrupts.

"Katherine Silver." I raised my eyebrow as he continues, "I met your father in passing before. Brilliant man." I take his offered hand accordingly in which causes him to frown. "Sorry about his disappearance."

"I ... uh, appreciate that." I guess I should get used to people being familiar with who I am. "But, er ... you too. Your work on molecular nanotechnology was brilliant." I practically gush as Natasha and Steve lead us to the bridge.

"Thanks." He nodded. I understood his quiet wariness. I was like that when I still feared my powers.

As we reached the inside of the carrier, I glanced around warily as I laid eyes on the room full of bustling SHIELD agents. Natasha led the three of us to the command center, where ironically, Fury was in the center. As Steve passes Agent Hill, I stop to speak with her.

"Agent." I greet, with a mock salute.

"Welcome aboard the helicarrier." Hill nods at me curtly, before a flash of a small smirk.

"Well, Fury insisted." I replied sarcastically. "He's _such_ a smooth talker." Hill shakes her head and I continue over to Fury.

"Thank you for coming, Ms. Silver." I shake Fury's outstretched hand as he expressed his gratitude.

"You practically insisted." I say as I glance around the room once more. "What's going on now?"

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet." Coulson answers from below us. "Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"That's still not going to find them in time." Natasha states, looking at Barton's profile.

"The search is too general." I added. "We have to narrow down the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?"

"Call every lab you know." Dr. Banner nods over to Coulson. "Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. We can rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places."

"Do you have somewhere for us to work?" I ask, eager to get this show on the road.

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner and Ms. Silver to their laboratory, please." Fury ordered and the redhead walks off.

"You'll love it; We've got all the toys." Natasha jests with that same cool and collected expression. I've got to ask her how she does that.

As Natasha leads us down the hall, I notice the wariness and unease of the passing agents. I was sure that these looks were because of Dr. Banner, considering his aloof expression and twitchy fingers. Honestly, yeah, after watching the Culver University footage of the Hulk I was nervous. Hell, I still am. But right now, I'm here with Bruce Banner, and he didn't destroy Harlem. Hulk did. I'm just glad to work with one of the greatest minds in the world.

When we reached the lab, Natasha followed us in for details. "Your rooms are south from this hall on the right. There's a lounge two doors down with coffee, and the cafeteria is on the lower level."

"Thanks, Nat." I say, causing the russian spy to raise her eyebrow at the casual tone.

"I'll be back for you soon." She tells me. "You'll be training with _me_ tonight." At this, Agent Romanoff smirks slightly.

My smile dropped, "Fury was _serious_ about that?"

Her smirk doesn't falter, "I'll see you at eight." She nods to Bruce, who returns the gesture. Natasha didn't linger in the lab and practically disappeared quickly. I stared at the space that Natasha just vacated in confusion, before shrugging it off.

"You never really get used to it, do you?" I voice my thoughts to the doctor.

"Get used to what?" Bruce asks as he powers up the advanced technology behind me. I pull off my leather jacket and hang it on the chair closest to me, then power on the the closest computers to me.

"The stares and the whispers." I murmur as I connect the calibrated spectrometers to the system.

"I barely notice anymore." Banner answers as we both type in the triggering key, effectively turning on the tracking algorithm. Now, all we needed to do was wait for the program to load entirely and we were in business.

I rolled my sleeves up and say, "I'm gonna head to the lounge. You want some coffee?"

"Sure. Black with three sugars, please."

I nod, "Got it."

"Thanks."

"No problem." I said as I walked off into the hallway. The Lounge was exactly Natasha had said it was. It was a bit bigger than the average breakroom that the library had. There were three sofas, a coffee maker and a flat screen that was predictably set on the channel four news.

When I got in there, there were two female agents silently snickering and casting salacious looks toward the unsuspecting Captain America. Meanwhile, the large blond was staring at the high-tech Keurig coffee maker with an expression caught between confusion and contempt.

"Need some help, Cap?" I ask lightly, with an amused smile. At Cap's first glance in my direction, I have to admit, my breath almost caught. _Almost._ Cap is incredibly nice to look at, but his perfectly crystalline-blue eyes and perfectly coiffed blond hair was very much American, compared to my green (sometimes hazel-green) eyes and dark smoky brown hair from my bulgarian features.

"Is it that obvious?" The Captain scratched his head awkwardly.

"No, I just know a first-timer when I see one." I reassure him. "The Keurig is little much when it comes to coffee machines. It took me two months to figure out the one at my work breakroom."

"Well, what do you do?" Cap asked, "Well, _before_ this happened?"

"Librarian." I answered, then took in his expression of surprise.

"That's surprisingly ..."

"Ordinary?" I offered. "I know. I try to keep a low profile. Being a mutant is not really accepted all that well by people."

"I don't think that mutants are that all that bad." He expresses. "They're known to help people."

I looked away. "Not all of us." I reached over him to grab a K-cup, "Here, I'll help." I change the subject, seeing as it brought up memories that I had long suppressed. "All you have to do is open the lid and insert the cup. There's different buttons that help you customize the strength of your coffee." I look up at him to make sure he was listening. When I was met with a grateful smile, I continued, "Or if you want it hot or iced."

"Well then I guess it's not as hard as it looks."

"It really is, Captain." I clarified, "But not without proper help."

"You can call me Steve, Ms. Silver."

I smile brightly, "Well then you can call me Katherine, Steve."

"Will do." He nods.

"I should probably bring Dr. Banner's coffee back to him." I say with a sheepish grin, trying not to rudely end the conversation.

Steve takes his full mug from the machine and moves over to the mini fridge with the milk. "Right."

I smile back at him once more and quickly make mine and Banner's caffeine. When I make it back to the lab, Banner seems to have everything up and running smoothly. "How's it going?"

"Nothing, yet." The doctor sighs and he thanks me for the cup.

"Nothing but faint trails in europe." I murmur, checking the screen. "I'm unsure if that's the tesseract or that spear Fury keeps yapping about."

After about two hours of checking screens and adjusting the scanner levels, I serious needed to recharge my batteries. After I called the cafeteria, I looked over to Bruce who was practically falling asleep in his chair with a pen in his hand, and chuckled to myself. "Hey, Banner?"

The pen quickly falls out of his hand, successfully waking him up. "Huh, what?"

"Dinner? You wanna go?" I offer, nodding to the door.

"I uh-" He looks over to the computer he was closest to, "I think I should stay and watch the computers. I could eat later."

"It's okay Dr. Banner, I called down there first." I smiled when he looked interested. "They're practically empty and they have cake."

"Uh, sure." He agrees, "But you wanna eat _with_ me, right?"

I raise my eyebrows and say slowly, "Yeah ..."

"Ok, just checking." Banner stands with a small smile, "Let's go then."

We walk out of the room and take the south elevator downstairs to lower level. We ignore the surprise stares and whispering as we go, well at least I tried, before I made one of the light bulbs in the overhead lights burst. From the corner of my eye, Banner cracks a smile. I was practically freaking out on the inside, but the doctor's secret smile made my annoyance go away.

"Guess they won't bother us anymore." I comment lightly.

"Do you do that a lot?" Banner asks, amusement in his voice.

"If I get irritated enough, yeah." I tell him as we reach the caf. "I don't really showcase my powers in public. I only really relax when I'm home, and things really get crazy in there. I mean, I guess being a born mutant freaks people out."

"Yeah."

There only seems to be four people in the caf. Just a few agents eating in twos and the staff. Banner and I grab trays of chicken and vegetables and I grab a green apple as I walk past. Then we go to a large cooler with sodas, juice and water to grab a drink.

"So how'd they call you in," I ask when we sit.

"I was uh, in Calcutta. The was an outbreak of Malaria, and I was offering aid. Agent Romanoff brought me in."

"I'm not surprised. They always bring her in when someone needs to be persuaded." I say, taking a sip of my water. "She has the charm."

"And all the manipulation too." Banner cracks.

"She mostly a good person though." I amend.

"Mostly?"

"She's a S.H.I.E.L.D agent."

"'Nough said." Banner agrees.

"Exactly." After cracking a smile with him, I realize that I enjoy his company. You know, despite his reserved demeanor. "You know, despite the Hulk, you're pretty much the most normal person I've met here."

"Gosh, what does that say about S.H.I.E.L.D agents?" Banner jokes and I shake my head.

"Come on, you're not that bad." I tell him, taking my long hair out of my ponytail. "Give yourself some credit. You're pretty sociable for someone that was removed from society."

"What about you?"

I'm kinda slow, mentally, so it took a few seconds for the question to sink in. "Oh, I was in New Jersey, working."

"On what? I imagine molecular biology."

"Oh, I wish." Banner furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at my admission. "I was working at a library."

"A scientist in a library?"

"Low profile. But since my dad had been working for S.H.I.E.L.D I'd been able to keep my location for once." And I keep talking, for some reason Banner could get me _really_ talking. "It's been really hard on the boys."

"Boys? You have kids?" Banner's eyes widen slightly.

Mine do too. "God, no. I have brothers. Twins actually." I shake of the thought of having kids. "They're seventeen."

"Wow, you're they're guardian?"

"Yeah." I say slowly, "When my dad had gone, I usually came home for a few weeks to take care of them. But when he disappeared, I had to come home full time."

"That has to be tough." Banner sympathizes.

"It was, when we had to move every couple of months. Thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D, they can finally have a hometown."

"Thats pretty noble of them."

"Yeah," I sigh, "I'm pretty much returning the favor here. I owe Fury a lot more than I care for. There's Steve. HEY, STEVE!" I yell across the caf. From my seat, I could see Steve's blush when he turned around. I whisper to Banner, "I may have embarrassed him."

Bruce chuckles, "You think?"

I pat Bruce on the shoulder lightly, in jest, and call Steve over to sit with us. When he puts his large tray in front of us as he sits, I apologize, "Sorry for calling you so loud. I have a knack to sound like a dork most of the time. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I sound like a soccer mom sometimes."

"No apologies necessary. I was just startled." Steve brushes off, "It's pretty empty in here."

"Perfect setting for the freak team to eat." I comment lightly, but it falls on deaf ears. "So Steve, have you had any time to explore the ship?"

"Just the Gym and the break room. I don't have the 'clearance' for much else."

"Me too. But I promised Fury I would hack his confidential files while I was here."

Steve looks at me suspiciously, "Why would you wanna hack S.H.I.E.L.D's confidential files?"

I'm taken aback by his question and tone. Damn, I shouldn't have opened my mouth. "Fury is hiding things about my father's disappearance. I miss him more than anything and I need to know if he is actually being searched for." I add quietly, "It gives me reason to wake up in the morning."

"Oh, I'm sorry about your father." Steve's sincere expression cheers me up a little.

"Me too. I apologize in advance for my word vomit." Steve raises his eyebrow in question, "But what was eating rations like?"

Steve looks taken aback, "I uh, it keeps you strong. The food wasn't much to taste though."

Bruce chuckles nervously, "I imagine it wasn't."

"So how goes the tesseract search?"

"Long and grueling. We're only picking up faint trails in europe. Nothing solid." Bruce answers for us.

I was actually startled by the redhead that stopped in front of our table. "You're late."

"But I'm eating." I gesture to my half eaten chicken breast and broccoli.

"And now, you're gonna be walking." Natasha raises her eyebrows at me.

"What is she late for?" I hear Steve ask Bruce.

"She's training with Agent Romanoff."

"Let's go," I roll my eyes and grab my tray, locking eyes with Bruce and Steve.

"Later, then." They both nod, and I walk off.

"Katherine sure is something, eh Steve?" Bruce says as he sips his Dr. Pepper.

"Yeah, she's a pretty unusual dame." Steve says, causing Banner to look up at him.

"What?"

"I mean, uh, woman?" Steve doesn't really know what to say.

"We'll go with that one." Bruce helps.

* * *

**Thank you to those who reviewed the first chapter and FAV'D AND FOLLOW'D. I like to have fans. This story means a lot to me. It's truly my baby. And if you read my other stories and I've been neglecting, I'm so sorry. I've been planning this one and another one for months and I'm gonna get back to my eldest. All my children matter! Anyway, you get to so see much Katherine interaction with the guys. You get so much Tasha time next one! Can't wait to get started writing it!**

**Next update: Next Monday**

**See ya next time!**


	3. Team Mishaps

_**Gavin Silver - Dylan McDermott**_

_**Katie (Catiya) Silver (Genkova) - Mia Kirshner**_

**Chapter Three**

_Team Mishaps_

Natasha hadn't wanted to get to the training. She wanted to spar with me first. Mind you, I haven't been in a fight over a year. I hadn't needed to. I was definitely sure that Fury needed us to prepare for battle now. The way I see it, I was the weakest link and there was no way I was gonna let that continue to be. All I had to do was survive Romanoff's 'diagnostics' test and we would go from there.

Easier said than done.

I borrowed some SHIELD yoga pants and a logo tank top (too comfy and form fitting to actually give back. Sorry Fury) from a storage room that Romanoff told me about and here I am. Loose low bun to keep my hair out of my face, game (anxious) face on, staring into the eyes of a trained killer.

"We haven't even done anything yet. How are you thirsty?" Natasha sounds vaguely annoyed. I wasn't prolonging anything, I just didn't want to have the _chance_ to be thirsty. Interesting battle tactic, huh? Yeah, I know.

"I'm just being prepared." I quip annoyingly. I should really try not to annoy a trained assassin before we spar. I chuck the water bottle to the lone folding chair on the back wall and stand four feet from Natasha. I shook out my muscles and cracked my muscles "Okay, bring it."

_We'll just put that in the jar of things not to say to Natasha before sparring._

I hadn't even seen Natasha's foot coming until I was on the ground with the most painful sensation in my knee. I mean, it was the first blow, so it didn't hurt for much longer. The redhead stands over me with that emotionless look on her face, "You need to work on your reaction time." She holds her hand out and I take it hesitantly. "We're starting over this time."

This time Natasha came after me, I dodged her move and elbowed her hard in the stomach. I used this opportunity to bring my knee up against her, but I failed. She grabbed my knee and head butted me.

_That_ was my downfall.

It took me too long to refocus my vision so Natasha used that advantage to throw me to the ground. The first thing I did as I hit the floor was grab her weaker leg, causing her to topple down. We both jumped up at the same time and she managed to punch me in the nose. The sickening crack of breaking bone and the pain should have deterred me from further action, but I instead was able to retaliate and punched her in her temple. We moved fluidly across the gym going blow for blow. I landed a few, but most of my moves were defensive and gave me time to develop a more offensive attack. I also took a lot of blows from Nat while doing so. This went one for thirty more minutes, until the famous Black Widow back flipped and landed in a stance that suggested this was over. I relaxed my features and stood straight.

When her face turned back and her eyes connected with mine, I could see the vague approval in her gaze. "Not bad." I look at her face. Her lip was bruised and so was her left temple.

Me, at a loss for words, goes for the first one that come to mind. "Sure." I grasped my nose firmly and set the bone quickly, cursing myself as I do so.

"You just need to work on your aim. And your technique needs some guidance." Natasha says, turning to walk away.

"I thought we were training for self control!" I call after her.

Natasha pauses and turns her head in my direction without actually looking at me. "The chair behind you shook for about five minutes and thirty four seconds. But it stayed in position. Try focusing your mind and calm your nerves. Your fear breaks your control." She continues walking and I can't help but feel ditched by mildly satisfied.

"Hmm, okay." I grabbed my water bottle and walked off to change in my room.

What Natasha had said got me thinking. When my mind was focused on one thing or thinking about one idea, I was in control. But my fear of my powers and what I'm capable of keeps me from learning how to use them properly. My powers come from my mind and as long as I keep my mind clear and focused, I can keep my powers controllable. Since my last "incident" I'd been doubting myself and it caused my self control issues. I needed to stay calm and keep my mind clear.

* * *

When I reached my SHIELD appointed room, I realized that my design input had been ignored. The room was complete drab, painted with an extremely dull color scheme. That's the last time I put helpful suggestions in Fury's mailbox.

I checked my phone for the time and saw that it was nine sixteen. I turned on my tablet and typed in the encryption key for the security cameras in my building. To my surprise, Jacob had taken my advice. There he was, with friends in the house watching a movie. There was a newer girl who I hadn't met sitting next to Jake. She was talking to him with a slight smile on her face. "Way to go lil' bro." She was a pretty girl, she had fiery auburn hair in a ponytail, black glasses with thin frames and a nice smile.

I changed quickly, actually eager to get back into the lab. I hadn't been in a real lab since 2006 and I was gonna take advantage of it. When I left my room, I nearly bumped into Coulson.

"I was hoping I might find you." Coulson says with slight relief. I'm guessing he's ignoring the bruising on my cheek.

"Yeah, I was on my way back to the lab." I say, pointing in that direction.

"I just need you for a few."

I huff and face Coulson fully. "Sure, what's up?"

Coulson starts walking down the west corridor and gestures for me to follow, "I thought you might wanna sift through your father's belongings for his notes."

"Uh sure, yeah. Yeah, I'd like that." We take the elevator to the basement.

"I worked very closely with your father. He was a great scientist. He practically ran the science research division." Coulson told me.

Now that remember, dad did talk about a Phil. "Dad's always been a leader." I said sadly. "I'm not really surprised."

"He talked about all of his kids. Mostly about you." I press my lips together to keep from crying. "I was wondering about when I would meet you, Ms. Silver."

"It would have probably been soon, if this hadn't happened." I pull some hair behind my ear. "They wanted me to pick up his stuff. I'm not really looking forward to it. Because when we find him, he's gonna be pissed when he finds out it's not here."

"Of course."

I hate awkward silences. "So Phil, what's your life like out of SHIELD?"

"I uh, live close to the base in New York, but honestly, I'm probably home for 3 months out of the year altogether. I have a hovercar-"

"No shit, you have a hovercar!" I yelp excitedly, as we move through the long rows shiny metal containers.

Coulson smiles proudly, "Her name is Lola." We stop at container 614B. "Here we are." Coulson punches in a seven digit code and as it opens, the container echoes a sharp hiss.

The pod consisted of a sleek metallic colored laptop with the SHIELD emblem on the cover, lab coat with his name sewn in with red stitching, a few picture frames and a medium sized yellow briefcase with a large black 'X' on the front. I picked up the laptop and ran my fingers over his engraved name at the bottom, sighing sadly.

"Can I, can I keep this?" I gesture to the laptop.

"Sorry, Ms. Silver. I'm afraid it's SHIELD property. You have to return this once you're finished." Coulson informs regrettably.

"It's ok. I understand." I was disappointed, but I understand. I could probably hack the system easier with the laptop, and they know this. I look up at Coulson, "I really appreciate this though."

"We're not done. One more thing." Coulson pulls the yellow briefcase out. "This, is yours."

"Professor Xavier requested that this be given to you at such a time when you were needed. There's no such time better than now." I looked at the briefcase with apprehension as I recalled the last conversation I had with Charles Xavier.

"_What's this I hear about your departure, Katherine?" The Professor wheels his way into the storage room._

"_My next stop was supposed to be your office, Professor." I tell him quickly, feeling caught. "My father set up a meeting with the Dean for MIT. If all goes well, I may be the second fifteen-year old to get in."_

_The Professor smiles warmly, "I'm proud of you, Katherine. As much I hate to see you go off to college so early, I know you have so much good to do for this world."_

_I walk over to him and grasp his hand, "Thank you for everything. I've never felt so accepted until I came to this school. I'm going to miss everyone so much."_

"_As long as it's not forever." He squeezes my hand._

"_Never forever." I say and kiss his cheek._

_His features turn serious for a moment. "Katherine, you shouldn't be afraid to use you natural born abilities to help people." I go to speak, but the Professor stops me, "Let me finish. What happened that day has happened to almost all of our students. We slip up, we lose control. One day our world is going to need all of you. And your going to have to face your fears. You don't need to do it for humans, for mutants, or for your parents. You'll have to do this for yourself. And when that day comes, remember what I always told you."_

"_There comes a time where we must push aside our demons, to fight for what's right._" I recited, remembering his exact words.

I take the case from Coulson and kneel onto the floor, and notice the keypad on the side. I knew what the code would be and I quickly punch it in. The case immediately clicks open and I lift the top. Inside I find a white card sitting on top of clothing.

_**That day is today, Katherine. I thought you might need something of your own. Hank made you a little something.**_

_**- Prof. X**_

I pulled out the deep violet suit from the briefcase. The suit was a deep violet, almost black catsuit with thick black straps along the sides. Under the suit, there were tactical boots, the same boots I knew that the X-men used. I smiled as I eyed subtle black 'X' symbol on the collar. I blink back the tears that threaten to fall and turn to Coulson. "Thank you, for all of this. How long has he had it?"

"Since '04. I guess you never needed it until now." I pack the suit back in the box and shut the case. I pick it up by the handle and grab the laptop, following Coulson out of the area.

* * *

As I walk with Coulson on the way back to the lab, he informs me that Barton and Loki were spotted in Germany while we were busy and were currently retrieving him. This made sense considering the fact that we were picking up those faint trails in Europe. It was most likely the spear—as we thought. As I made it back to the lab, Banner's just walking out. "Hey. I was wondering when you would make it back."

"I was with Coulson, looking through some things." I answer vaguely. After hearing hard footsteps in unity, I turn toward the hall that I had just come from. There were several guards with high powered rifles making their way down the hall. I glance subtly in Banner's direction and saw that he was interested as well.

As the guards had gotten closer, I could finally see what they were guarding.

The first thing I could see was the robes. He was definitely not of this world, for he wore long Black robes. They were accented with green fabric that seemed to also the same color as the armor underneath. There was also a solid gold sash draped across his armor in several places, practically screaming royalty. From what I could see, his hair was a dark black, shoulder length and spiked outward. When our eyes connected, he smirked instantaneously, making me extremely uncomfortable. To my surprise, he winked at me. I hadn't realized how much he unnerved me until I noticed that the lights in the lab were flickering.

I looked up in annoyance, then back to Loki. He was grinning ear-to-ear as he nodded at Dr. Banner. What was that all about? I rubbed my temples slowly. He's just trying to rile me up, he's just testing my control. I exhaled deeply, as I walked over to Banner.

"Is it just me, or—"

"No, I saw it too." Banner agrees.

"We should probably get back to the bridge." I tell him, adjusting the gamma levels for a higher signature. "Fury's gonna want to debrief us."

"I'll be right behind you." I nod and walk off into the hall, fending for myself.

* * *

**Sorry for the tardiness guys! I have a lot of preparing to do for school and now I'm watching a family member's kid for money. I may be a bit late updating the next one but I hope you enjoyed this one! We're really gonna have fun when I add Thor and Tony in the next one. I can't wait to write them!**

**Questions?**

**Reviews?**

**PLEASE!**

**See you next time!**

**And VOTE FOR THIS STORY ON MY PROFILE POLL!**


	4. Loki Situations

**Disclaimer: I can't really say I own the name, **_**The Phoenix**_**, but I own Katherine, her story and her family. All movie plots and situations belong to Marvel.**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

_Loki Situations_

* * *

As I made my way through the hall, I could hear all of the whispers and hushed conversations about the triumphant capture of Loki. Honestly, in my mind, this whole thing is a set-up. The bridge wasn't by far as tense and busy as it was when I had first come along, now it was less crowded, which made me assume that some agents had went off to rest. I walked past it and kept moving toward the conference table. When I got there, Steve and Natasha were already seated and a tall and hulking blonde standing off to the side with a pensive and calculating gaze.

"I see you were successful." I commented as I made my presence known in the room. The large man that I recognize as Thor regards me with minor interest. I walk toward the man and offer my hand. "You must be Thor." I offer my hand. "Katherine Silver. I'm helping to locate the tesseract."

"Yes, I am the Son of Odin. I'm pleased to meet you Lady Silver." Thor nods to me, politely. My eyebrows raise at the nickname, but he doesn't notice as he seems to be deep in thought.

I stand behind the chair that's a seat away from the Captain. I feel almost unworthy, standing this close to him while he was in full armor. Moments later, Bruce joined us and the screens lit on the glass table as Fury had just closed the cage door on Loki.

"In case it wasn't clear," Fury began as he walked over to a control panel, "you try to escape, if you so much as _scratch_ that glass," Fury opens the cage-sized hatch below, "it's thirty-thousand feet down in a steel trap." He closes the hatch door, "You see how this works?" He gestures to Loki. "Ant." He gestures back to the control panel, "Boot." I almost scoff at Fury's jab.

Loki begins talking, so I tap the camera that is focused on him. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me." I refuse the urge to look in Bruce's direction, which would probably further solidify the accusation.

"It's built for something much stronger than you." Fury replies.

Loki stops pacing and faces Fury once more. "Oh, I've heard," He grins almost evilly into the camera that I was looking into. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"

He seems to be amused by the list of minds and heroes Fury called upon. He's a little _too_ comfortable with his arrangement and it was really beginning to irk me. We had no idea how he was to use the tesseract to attempt to rule the earth.

"How desperate am I?" Fury says with incredulity. He walks into the direction of the cage. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

I took Fury's words as a final threat, but apparently, Loki didn't. "Ooh," He smiles mockingly, "It burns you to have come this close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what?" Loki looks back into his camera. "A warm light for all mankind to share," Loki finally looks back at Fury. "and then to be reminded what real power is."

"Well let me know if _Real Power_ needs a magazine or something." Nick Fury just walks off, leaving Loki to smirk a the camera. I stared in Loki's figure, mostly into his eyes which lacked any life humanity (relatively speaking, of course). However, the screen cut off, leaving us to figure out our next move.

Thor's back was turned from us, causing me to believe that he was bothered by his brother's actions or possibly trying to figure out his next move.

I push myself off the chair and lean on the railing behind the Captain. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce comments, breaking the stunned silence in the room.

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve starts, getting down to business. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

Thor seems to have finally snapped out of his internal thoughts and faces everyone in the room. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army?" Steve stares, clearly in disbelief. "From outer space?"

"So he must be building another portal." I hypothesized. "That's why he needs Selvig."

"Selvig?" Thor familiarizes.

"He's an astrophysicist." Banner explains.

"He's a friend." Thor tells us.

"Loki has him under his spell," Natasha tells Thor, "along with one of our own."

"I want to know why Loki let us take him? It's not like he's leading any armies from here." Steve thinks aloud.

"Cap's right. He's been all grins and smirks since he's got here." I added. "That doesn't really scream compromised plans to me."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki." Banner insists. "That guy's mind is bag full of cats. You could smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak!" Thor defends. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother.

"He killed eighty people in two days." Natasha informs in a deadpan voice.

Thor looks slightly stunned and embarrassed. "He's adopted."

"Hmph." I scoff almost inaudibly.

"It's about the mechanics." Banner interjects. "The iridium, what did they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." Curiously, everyone's eyes shift toward the door, where Tony Stark is just walking in with Coulson and also finishing off a previous conversation."It means that the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did back at SHIELD. No offense Point Break," As he walks passed Thor, he lightly taps the demigod's arm. "You've got a mean swing." Even though this is Tony Stark were talking about, I was quite surprised at his audacity. He managed to made the admission of defeat sound condescending.

"It also means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." I add to the conversation.

"Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the topsails." Tony orders the confused crew members. He points to someone I can't see from my position. "That man is playing GALAGA! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."

As he walks around Agent Hill, she rolls her eyes, confirming that she disliked the genius. Honestly, I wasn't sure that Maria Hill likes anyone. He continues walking over to Fury's desk as he covers his eye, he looks around. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns."' Hill answers stiffly.

"Well, that sounds exhausting." Tony comments. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asks defiantly.

"Last night." Stark answers her sharply. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve cut in.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred million Kelvin just to break the Coulomb barrier." Banner informs Steve, who looks a little confused, to say the least. I push off the railing and move over to where Bruce is standing

Stark nods. "Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet." I add to Stark's comment.

"Finally, people who speak English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asks the partly bewildered people in the room.

"Good to finally meet you, Ms. Silver." I was taken aback by the formal greeting. Simply I just shook his hand. "It's about time SHIELD opens it's doors to mutants." Stark leans closer, "By the way, I'm 100% with the movement." Before I could move my lips to say something, Mr. Stark just pats my left shoulder and moves on to Dr. Banner. I look over to Agent Romanoff, and all she does is shake her head, as if silently saying _just go with it_.

"It's good to meet you as well, Dr. Banner." Stark greets Dr. Banner as the two shake hands. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Banner frowned slightly at the reminder. "Thanks." I believe the _I think_ was implied at the end.

"Dr. Banner and Ms. Silver are only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join them." Fury states firmly, walking into the room. I'd have jumped from his loud and authoritative voice if I hadn't heard his footsteps coming down the hall five seconds ago.

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve suggested.

"I don't know about that," Fury answers. "But it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor pipes up, clearly confused. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve blurts out. "I understood that reference." Tony rolls his eyes, while Cap looks proud of himself. I hold my chuckle in, and turn to Stark and Dr. Banner's direction.

"Shall we do science?"

"This way, sir." Banner smiles pleasantly, and Stark lets me go ahead of him as he follows behind me.

* * *

I wasn't really paying much attention to Tony Stark's ramblings as we made our way back to the lab. I was more focused on staying in control, considering the fact that I managed to sit in that room full of people and nothing was floating in the air, or moving. I was on a roll that that wanted to keep up. As we entered the lab, I started to fix some of the equations and algorithms that I had left unsolved the last time I left.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process." Bruce tells him.

"If we bypass their mainframe and directa reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops."

"All I packed was a tooth brush." Bruce chuckles.

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You guys would love it. It's like Candyland." Stark said as he walked over to a computer.

I shrugged as I brought myself back into the conversation. "Sounds like fun." I say, sending an encouraging glance to Bruce.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem." Bruce reminds him.

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." Suddenly, Tony pokes Banner with a miniature electric prod.

"OW!" Bruce shouts.

"Where the hell did you even get that?" I asked, staring at the thin gadget closely.

Tony looks at Banner closely. "Nothing?"

"Hey! Are you nuts?" I turn around to face the Captain as he entered the room.

"Jury's out." Tony dismisses to Steve's annoyance. He resumes speaking to Dr. Banner. "You really have got a lid on it,haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve walks closer to Tony_. Oh shit_. I'm just standing on the other side of the lab, watching. Bruce looks to me for help, but I just shrug. I mean, how can you really stop an argument between Iron Man and Captain America?

"Funny things are." Tony continues.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." My eyebrows raise, and I almost shake my head at the paranoia on this ship. "No offense, doctor."

"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." I reluctantly look away and use my powers to bring my bag to me from the entrance.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut. Like Silver over there." I freeze and stop what I'm doing, causing my bag to fall onto the edge of the table, and then the floor. All three men were looking at me. Bruce was just curious, Tony looked fascinated and smug, and Steve had a disapproving look.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?"

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." I walked over to the spear to analyze the signature and use the algorithm to connect it to the system. "It's bugging them too, isn't it?" Stark gestures to where Bruce and I were standing.

"Katherine?" Steve asks me, and I realize that he wants my opinion.

"I always think Fury's hiding something." I say, carefully. "I usually try to stay out of it, but ... Bruce?" He looked up at me. "Help me out here?"

Bruce begins stammering, not really wanting to be a part of the arguing. "Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..."

"Doctor?"

He sighs, then goes around the table. "'A warm light for all mankind', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."

"I heard it." Steve nods.

"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce says, pointing in Tony's direction. "Even if Barton didn't say anything, that was all over the news."

"The Stark Tower? That big ugly ..." Steve pauses and Tony gives him a look. "...building in New York?"

Bruce continues, making me believe that he put a lot of thought into this. "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now." Tony boasts.

"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? Or even Katherine? Her father was on the project before he disappeared." Bruce expressed something that I had been thinking about for months. "I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony says casually. I frowned, considering he pretty much beat me to it.

"I'm sorry, did you say...?"

"That's pretty impressive." I stated. Tony grinned in my direction, and I completely avoided looking the Captain's way.

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge." Tony says smugly. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." Tony holds out a bag of blueberries to me. "Blueberry?"

I reach my hand in and grab a few as Bruce and I watch. "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?"

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome." Tony points out.

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them." Steve shared, reminded me of my earlier thoughts about Loki.

"Following is not really my style." Tony brushes his thoughts off.

Steve smiles sarcastically. "And you're all about style, aren't you?"

I visibly see Tony's temper flare. "Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Bruce finally steps in.

Steve takes in the possibly, but as an obedient soldier, shakes it off. Instead of answering, he just walks off. "Just find the cube." Still torn apart by the possibility, he walks away, towards the hull of the ship.

From the table behind me, I hear a light vibration. When I turn around, I realize its a message from Romanoff.

**MEET ME AT THE CAGE ASAP. I NEED ASSISTANCE.**

"Okay, that's not ominous at all." I mutter to myself. "Romanoff needs me." I announce. "I'll be back in fifteen." I say as I start to leave.

"Silver, bring me back some Raisinets!" I hear Tony call after me. I don't answer and keep going.

As I take the hallway to the elevator closest to the detention area, I see the Captain. This was weird because I hadn't seen him go this way before. I decided to catch up to him. "Hey, Steve? Steve?" I try to call after him in hushed tones. He stops walking and turns.

As I reach him I say, "Keep walking and don't turn around."

"What's going on, Ms. Silver?" Steve demands firmly.

"Katherine." I correct, only to receive an exasperated gaze. "Right. If you by chance did believe us, I know a little something about something." I say as I lead him to the elevator where I was going.

Steve nods slowly. "Ok, suppose I do believe you. What is it?"

We stepped into the elevator and I tapped the B for Basement level. "While you guys were off in Stuttgart, I came across a classified room with clearance for agents and research staff level 6 and up."

"How did you find out about it?" Steve looks at me curiously.

"I hacked into the secured files on my dad's laptop." I admitted without shame. I didn't miss the look of irritation on Steve's face. "Come on, I did this in my free time."

After a short pause, Steve sighs reluctantly. "Fine. Give me the room number."

"BA-217. The security code is ..."

Steve cuts me off as he steps off the elevator. "I think I'll manage."

I raised my eyebrow, "Okay, I'll see you then." I walked off in the other direction, enroute to meet Agent Romanoff by the cage.

* * *

**Not too eventful ... but what does Natasha want? How will Katherine fit into the attack on the ship? Not much Thor interaction, but that we change later. Tony seems to like her though. And she's obviously comfortable with Bruce already.**

**Next Chapter: Romanoff and Battleship attack!**

**Review guys!**

**And keep reading!**

* * *

**RealHuntress18**


	5. Ship Complications

**I love the reviews! Keep them coming. I also have a poll on my profile about what I update next. I have updated all of my stories within the last two months, so I wanted you guys to pick what I was going to write for next. After the last chapter is written, there will be a poll on who Katherine should be paired with (if any; since this is a romance, but I want this to be predominately action/adventure) and I will start either a short story that puts the pairing and Kat's separate storyline together, or a long one that eventually runs into another marvel movie.**

**Disclaimer:**

_I own nothing marvel._

* * *

**S.O.H**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

_Ship Complications_

"You want me to do _what_?" I squeak as Romanoff and I stand in the surveillance room connected to the cage room.

"Can you, or can't you?" Natasha asks. "If his emotions change, I need to know in order to keep him talking."

"I mean, sure I _can_, but ..." I shake my head in disbelief. "He's the God of _games_ and _tricks_. His mind has to be a _fortress_ and I don't know if I'm strong enough to take that."

"I'm gonna need you to try." Natasha urges. "We need you, Silver." The finality in her voice put me on the fence. I know that I could probably do it, but the possibility of Loki weakening me was too great.

"I'm gonna try." I nod to her. Natasha handed me an earpiece so that I could talk to her as she spoke to him. Loki is pacing around the cage as Natasha stealthily walks into the room. I walked over to the large dark tinted window that overlooked the cage and grasped the edge of the control panel as I leant forward. I closed my eyes and calmed myself as I opened my senses to the minds of others in the area. First, I felt Natasha's flickering determination and agitation as she entered the room.

"_There's not many people that can sneak up on me._" Loki turns to see Natasha standing there. I open my mind up to Loki's and push softly, not even remotely hard enough to raise suspicion. I can feel his surface emotions, which were amazingly smug and amused. He was also filled with anticipation.

"_But you figured I'd come._" Natasha states calmly.

"_After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate_." Loki says, seeming to be amused at the hilarity of it.

"_I wanna know what you've done to Agent Barton_." Natasha asks him and his earlier emotions fade as he becomes interested in the conversation.

"_I'd say I've expanded his mind._" Loki arrogantly replies. She could feel pride and entitlement. I lifted the earpiece.

"Romanoff, right now he's just messing you around. I'm feeling pride, entitlement, and he's quite smug right now."

"_And once you've won. Once you're king of the mountain. What happens to his mind?_"

"_Is this love, Agent Romanoff?_" Loki smirks.

Natasha's eyes stayed leveled. She answers in the same tone she had been using. "_Love is for children. I owe him a debt._" I roll my eyes at her admission. Typical SHIELD agent answer.

"_Tell me_." Loki says as he takes a seat on the the bench inside the cage.

Natasha pulls up a chair as well. "_Before I worked for SHIELD, I uh...well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skillset. I didn't care who I used it for, or on. I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call._"

"_And what will you do if I vow to spare him?_" From what I could feel, he was pleased. Almost _too_ pleased.

"_Not let you out._" Natasha answers, without a beat.

"He wants you to break, Natasha." I say through the earpiece. "He's searching for a weakness. Just assume that he knows whatever Barton knows."

"_Ah, no. But I like this._" Loki laughs heartily. "_Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?_" I had to give it to him, Loki was smart. He was feeling quite skeptical. Here he was, attempting to rule earth, and Natasha was in there asking about Barton.

"_Regimes fall every day._" Natasha shrugs casually. He looked interested, and nearly fooled. "_I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian... or was._"

"I think you're getting to him." I tell her.

"_And what are you now?_"

Natasha stands and takes a few steps closer. "_It's really not that complicated. I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out._"

"_Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Dreykov's daughter? São Paulo? The Hospital fire? Barton told me everything._" Loki stands and rushes over to her.

"Don't engage him, he looking for a reaction. He's aggravated, almost unimpressed." I pull back some, feeling a headache begin to form.

"_Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer... PATHETIC!_" I rub at my temples and shut my eyes tight to ease the pain.

"_You _lie _and _kill _in the service of liars and killers_." Loki says, boring into her eyes intensely. If I didn't know what he was doing, I could almost believe him, almost _agree_ with his point.

"_You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!"_ I let go of his mind and looked up. If it were me, I'd have been on my knees right now. If he'd have dangled my dirty laundry in front of me and mocked the things I tell myself to get out the bed in the morning, I couldn't have handled it. Loki suddenly slams his fist to the cage and I jumped. "_I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him _kill you_!_ Slowly_._ Intimately_. In every way he knows you fear! And when he'll wake just long enough to see his good work," _Unable to tear my eyes away _and when he screams, I'll _split _his _skull_! This is my bargain, you _mewling _quim!"_

"_You're a monster._" Answered a small, quiet voice that I couldn't even associate with Natasha Romanoff.

Loki laughs, his anger and disgust quickly dissipated. "_Oh no, you brought the monster._" His apparent complacency and self-assuredness was unmistakable.

He meant Banner.

Holy shit. She got him.

"You've got him." I say softly, mostly in disbelief.

"_So, Banner ... that's your play._" Natasha turns around, revealing that she had been playing along with his mind games the whole time. I heard that Romanoff was good, but to see her in action, it was really something else.

"_What?_" Loki's last emotion was so terrifically clear. _Confusion_. Natasha walks away as she announces Loki's plan to the rest of us. I take another deep breath and pull out my earpiece, shoving it into my pocket. As I look up, I was startled by Loki's shift into my direction.

"We'll meet again, mutant woman." Only his lips hadn't moved. That voice, _his _voice, was in my head. Before I could form a coherent thought, Natasha bursts through the door.

"We need to get back to the lab now." She urged. I nodded and followed the fiery redhead out of the room, all while trying to get Loki's grinning face out of my head.

"It makes perfect sense." I comment.

"What? About Banner?"

"Yeah, when guards were taking Loki to the cage he winked at me and then he smirked at Bruce." I explained. "If Bruce hulks out, who knows what can happen. It only makes our job in the lab that much important. We have to find the tesseract." As we stepped out of the lab, we ran into Thor.

"Hello, Lady Katherine and Agent Romanoff." Thor greets pleasantly.

"Thor, Loki wants Bruce to Hulk out." I explain.

Thor frowns. "Very well, then."

"Follow us to the lab." Natasha says abruptly, with a clipped tone. I just raise my eyebrows and glance at Thor, who still frown.

"Come on, big guy."

"I understand that you oversaw my brother's interrogation?" Thor asks me carefully.

"Yeah, I did." I answer him. "Loki has plans for Banner. Possibly for me, too. There's just something about the way he looks at me."

"I assure you that no harm will come to you at the hands of my brother." Thor promised.

"Thank you, Thor." I say with a grateful smile. Sometimes the confidence of others can boost your own.

When we reached the lab, I was quite surprised. Steve and Fury were in there and there was a strange gun with a blue energy source on the table. It seemed that Phase two was finally being confronted, and I was curious to see where this leads.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asks Natasha.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" Natasha answers.

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." Bruce snarks.

"Loki's manipulating you." She explains.

"And you've been doing what exactly?" Bruce shot back. While Natasha was right, I had to be honest that I wasn't all that happy with her when I realized that we were all manipulated into coming here.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyes at you." Natasha defended.

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." Bruce stands and points at the computer screen, while addressing the director of SHIELD. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him." Fury points to Thor.

I glance at Thor, who looks stunned. "Me?"

"Last year, earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor defends his planet.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled." Fury looked around the room briefly, landing on me last.

Before I could voice any irritated thought about Fury's implications, Steve stepped in. "Like you controlled the cube?"

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Steve questions.

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something." Fury defends his actions.

"Nuclear deterrent. Cause that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury replies to the billionaire.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep ...-"

"Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?" Tony demands, annoyance filling his tone.

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Again, I had this nagging feeling that everything that we were being manipulated. Despite this fact, I was still angry about SHIELD's lies.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this." Thor comments.

"We usually are." I say to Thor, considering I was still standing by him. "The government is always questionable."

"Excuse me, did _we_ come to _your _planet and blow stuff up?" Fury points out to Thor.

"Do you always give your champions such mistrust?" Thor is in as much disbelief at the argument as I was.

"Are you all really that naive? S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threats." Natasha stepped in.

The mere thought of being observed like a criminal pisses me off. "Right, because if you're not with SHIELD, you get a target put on your back."

"Captain America is on the potential threat watch list?" Banner says sceptically.

"We all are."

"You're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?" Tony wise cracks about Steve.

"I swear to god, Stark, one more crack ..."

"Verbal threat! I feel threatened!" Tony continues to irritate the soldier.

"Are we really serious?" I say as I step toward Natasha's direction. I was tired of the pointless banter. We had more important things to do. They continued to go back and forth, Fury, Steve, and Stark.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos." Thor announces, thoroughly claiming the role of the first person to say anything that made sense.

"It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team?" I scoffed at that. "No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb."

"You need to step away." Fury demands.

Stark puts his arm around Steve. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"

Steve pushes Tony off. "You know damn well why! Back off!"

Tony comes face-to-face with him. "Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

Steve smiles sarcastically and circles the shorter man. "Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Natasha and I glance in agreement. _True._

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage." Stark narrows his eyes at the Captain. "The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire." I move over to Bruce and lean on a table adjacent from him.

Steve glances around him with a sarcastic smile. "Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you?" Tony fumes. "You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!"

Thor laughs at the macho display, "You people are so petty ... and tiny." I narrowed my eyes at the subtle glowing coming from the scepter. _What the hell is that?_ Something was very wrong and I could feel it.

"Yeah," Banner scoffs, "this is a team."

Fury commands, "Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his..."

Bruce cut him off, "Where? You rented my room."

Fury once more tried to defend himself. "The cell was just in case..."

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!" I quickly turned my head to the doctor in a stunned silence, as did everyone else did. When Bruce saw all of the eyes on him, he felt the need to explain his outburst. "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out!" Bruce calmed down. "So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!" I opened my mouth to say something, but I was stopped by the sight of Bruce slowly picking up the scepter. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

I hear the sharp click of the safety being taken off. Steve spoke up slowly. "Dr. Banner... put down the scepter."

Bruce looked down at hand reluctantly and looked at the weapon. Suddenly, the monitors in the far corners began to beep rapidly.

"Got it." I stand from the table and look toward the monitors.

"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all." Bruce puts down the scepter and walks over to the monitor and I follow."

"You've located the Tesseract?" Thor asked, watching us.

As the men argue about who goes after the tesseract, Bruce and I look at the readings carefully. I blink a few times to get the sleep out of my eyes. The readings suggested something that was near impossible. The tesseract was apparently in the general vicinity, relatively, right next to us.

"Bruce, do you see what I'm seeing?" I say slowly, coming out of my disbelief.

"Oh, my God ..." Bruce swore.

Before Bruce and I could investigate this thoroughly, the ground shook before I heard a loud bang ring through my ears. First I felt the intense heat from the fire, then feeling the floor crumble from underneath me. As I finally landed on solid ground, I groaned as I felt the pressure from sharp metal pressing into the back of my thigh. I could also feel the burns on my arms from shielding my face from the fire of the explosion. I managed to lift my face from the cool metal flooring. Although my eyes felt heavy, I forced them open and used my bruised and battered hands to prop myself up. I heard struggling a few feet from me and I recognized it as Bruce. His skin was turning a greenish hue and I automatically knew what was going to happen.

"We're okay." Romanoff says into her earpiece. "We're okay, right?" She looks up nervously at me, then Bruce.

"Bruce, are you okay?" I repeat, genuinely concerned. Bruce says nothing and continues to groan loudly, which begins to scare me. If I can't stop Bruce from changing, I have to get Natasha out of here. "Look, Bruce. You can't let Loki win. This is exactly what he wanted. You've got to listen to me." I struggled to move and realized that my ankle was broken. I knew that it would take a half hour to heal, and I didn't have that kind of time. I groaned painfully as I shifted my injury in an attempt to move.

"We're gonna be okay. Right?" Natasha tries. "I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never..."

"**Your life?**" Bruce's bitter amusement is over clouded presumably by the Hulk's bellowing voice. I flinched fearfully and look over to Natasha.

"You have to get out of here." I say urgently, looking her in the eye.

"What?" She looks at me in disbelief. "I'm not leaving you."

"If we both run, he's going to follow." I reason with her. "I can hold him off, but I need you to find Thor." She closes her eye firmly, because she knew I was right. "Can you do that?"

"I can't get out!" She gestures to her feet. Bruce's groaning gets worse and I hear ripping from behind me. I use my free hand to reach over in her direction and the heavy and destroyed equipment moves. I look over at Bruce and see him crawling away from us. He gives me one last look and I blink back the tears. "Go!" I yell. "Now!"

Romanoff runs off behind Bruce and I get my foot from under the metal pipe. Bruce knocks into more equipment and lets out a dangerously killer roar. I back away, stepping on some glass along the way. I grimace and look back in Bruce, now Hulk's, direction. He turns around and I got a real look at the green rage monster that I had heard so much about.

"Shit." I swore.

* * *

**This one is an actual real chapter. The last one was too short, so I owed this to you guys.**

**This tangle with the Hulk is going somewhere, because I believe that Bruce can't hang with anyone that hadn't at least been up close and personal with our beloved Brute. Anyway, I have a lot planned. You get to see some of the mysterious powers that I hadn't revealed yet, and you get to see some team work.**

**GO TEAM!**

**Don't mind me. ;)**

**Review please!**

* * *

**RealHuntress18**


	6. Enemy Dilemmas

**New Chapter guys! If it seems like I take too long to update, it's because I update my stories one at a time. if I get stumped on any one of them, it affects the rest. I have no writer's block with this one, so when I get to it, it won't take much time to finish.**

**Disclaimer: **_All rights to the avengers goes to Marvel, the director, and writers of the movie. _

* * *

**S.O.H**

* * *

**Chapter Six**

_Enemy Dilemmas_

He turns around and I got a real look at the green rage monster that I had heard so much about.

"Shit." I swore.

I get up and run up the nearest staircase, moving in the opposite direction from where I had sent Natasha. I needed to get him into an open area, where he could do less damage to the ship and I was in control. I leapt off of the staircase as I felt it come apart and nearly fell off the edge before I could completely maneuver myself onto the second level. I slide under the pipes to get to the other side and run like hell. I don't look back, even as the groans, roaring and grunting gets closer. I dive, duck and practically crawl through the upper research panels, occasionally scratching and bumping into pipes and equipment with several limbs.

_I know that's gonna bruise in the morning._

I hadn't noticed how severely I had been lacking proper body care until I felt myself begin to slow (not that I believed I was that fast in the first place). I took a sharp turn, continuing to keep my current speed, I saw the lower research hangar in the distance and continued in that direction.

As I could feel him getting too close to me, I knew that there was no way that I was going to make it to that hangar. I took a detour and when I lost him around a corner, I climbed on top of a box and slid between the pipes above me. I crawled into the direction of the frustrated growls and breathed my relief as I saw the hangar in a safe distance. All of this with a painfully sprained ankle, but it was all for a reason.

_I had a plan._

About two hundred feet ahead from _me_ was the Hulk. Two hundred feet behind _him_ was the third of the research floors. If I jumped down now, I was going to have to run at him head on. I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead and kissed the pendant on my necklace. I jumped down from the pipes loudly, the dull _thud_ echoed through the hall. When Hulk turned around and roared at me, I did my best at charging toward the brute. Just as I reached five feet from him, he raised his too large arm to make a swipe at me and I ducked stupidly with my eyes closed. I slid across the floor painfully, gritting my teeth as the sliding turned into rolling.

When I finally got to my feet I pushed the door open. There were at least fifty people moving about in the area.

"EVERYONE, CLEAR OUT NOW!" I yelled urgently. Obviously my order wasn't clear enough, considering people were just staring at me in confusion. Just the moment after, the massive BOOM and crumbling of the wall behind me, struck fear in their eyes. I turned and his attention was immediately on me.

I must have _really _pissed him off.

I got him here, that was the plan. To get him to a place large enough where he couldn't cause harm to anyone. I hadn't really thought past actually getting him here. Thor was the back-up plan, and that all rides on whether Natasha actually made it to him. My thought process didn't last that long, considering I felt the crushing grip of the Hulk grabbing my arm and throwing me through the air.

I sailed through the air until I collapsed into a stack of crates. As my vision refocused, the Hulk was standing over me in an attempt to strike me while I was weak.

I didn't _like_ that very much.

I used the fallen crates beside me to my advantage and used my powers to hit him with the metal crate in the side. It didn't do much of anything to him, to my annoyance, it just knocked him down. Before I could come up with another plan, a hand materialized on front of me. I tilted my head back a little more and let out a breath in relief when my green eyes connected with Thor's blue ones. I accepted his hand gratefully.

"Are you alright?" Thor ask me as he pulls me up.

"Nothing that can't heal." I reply, then glance over his shoulder as the Hulk makes his appearance behind Thor. Thor nods and turns around lighting fast, shielding the Hulk's huge fist from crushing us both.

"We are not your enemies, Banner." Thor tries to reason with him. "Try to think!" The brute scoffs in obvious irritation and throws the blonde through the crates to my left.

"Over here!" I call as the Hulk tries to walk off in Thor's direction. I was in a standing position (pretty impressive for someone with a sprained ankle) telekinetically wielding a metal crate in mid-air suspension.

As I hoped, the beast came at me, so I put the crate to good use. I aim the crate at his left leg, causing him to topple over dangerously to the point where he was headed straight toward me. I dodged out of the way quickly and he went past me.

When he got up, he grabbed debris from the plane he fell next to and threw it straight at me. But before it got close enough, Thor pushed me out of the way and slid underneath the flying object and immediately jumped back up to launch his hammer at the angry green giant. The Hulk caught the hammer and was thrown to the ground by the underestimated weight of the weapon. I frowned in confusion as the beast attempted to lift the Asgardian weapon and failed to do so.

Thor landed a kick on the Hulk's shoulder, allowing him to pick up his preferred weapon. Thor jumped behind him to try to subdue him with his hammer around his neck, but it didn't work out, considering Hulk jumped both of them into the research level 4.

"_Silver, do you copy?_" I finally heard through my earpiece, after almost a half hour of ignoring the frantic orders from Fury and Agent Hill.

"I copy." I answered, panting from the strain on my mind.

"_Are you in one piece?_"

"Mostly." I mumble as I duck away from the fallen debris from where the Hulk and Thor were fighting above me. I frowned as I realized that I couldn't help anymore.

"_Location?_" I rolled my eyes at the military speak. I understood the phrasing and coding, having grown up with two parents involved in the government, U.S. and Russian alike.

"Research level 3."

"_We just ordered evac down there._"

"I led Banner away from the control area. Banner and Thor are above me on level four." I inform him as I make it out into the North hall.

"_That's not going to be enough. I've got a bird coming_." I nodded absentmindedly. "_We've got hostiles in SHIELD gear in sector one by the northeast turbines. Stark and Cap are there working on it._"

"Got it. I'm close by." I answer, realizing what he was asking. I sneak around the frantic halls quickly, trying not to be seen and avoiding any of the assholes in SHIELD uniforms.

I manage to get around two corners before being shot at. I threw my hand toward the two men, causing their guns to fly all the way down the corridor. Weaponless, they decide to come at me together. I duck the first man's fist and elbow him in the stomach, then I punch him in the face. He staggers back into the other one, who pushes him away before continuing to come at me.

I ignore the pain in my skull from overexertion and duck his first swing and use my leg to trip him. As he goes down, I move to stand and I feel the stinging pain in my skull from my hair being pulled. I grunt in pain as he drags me down the hall slowly.

"Stand the bitch up." Man #2 says. "I wanna to teach her some manners." The first man picks me up and wraps his arms around my shoulders with my back to him. The second stands up and smirks evilly. "I'm gonna enjoy this."

"Not as much as I will." I manage to smile, though I'm sure it looked much more like a grimace. I kick the second douche in the scrotum, stomp on the foot of the man that held me and threw us backward into the wall, making sure his skull made impact. His grip loosened and I twisted around, kicking him with the heel of my boot for good measure.

I turned on my other opponent to find him recovering from the blow to his manhood. I charged at him, kneeing him in the face really hard. I hadn't noticed that it was too hard until I hard his head hit the ground and the sickening crack of skull.

I stared at his lifeless corpse as his blank eyes stare at nothing. I close my eyes as I continue moving and remind myself that he tried to killed me. As the adrenaline comes down, the pain from my skull returns. As I reach the door that led to the northeast turbines (I knew this was it considering I could feel the dangerous winds and see the light coming from it) I hear gunfire and shouts. As I get in the doorway I see the hostile in question standing close to the edge, shooting at something above us. I see flash of red and blue above me and recognize the color scheme.

I move closer to the man and shout, "Hey, you!" The man turns around and I give him my right hook, causing him to stagger back until he goes over the edge.

My help paid off, Steve managed to pull himself back and pull a red lever, presumably the lever that would reverse the polarity of the rotors to let Stark out safely. Steve spotted me below him, so I saluted him with a smirk on my face. He returned it and jumped down to my level, just as Stark landed in front of us.

I hear a muffled voice in my earpiece, so I turned the dial to better hear the transmission.

_Agent Coulson is down. _Fury said.

_Paramedics are on their way._

_They're here. _Fury answered, _They called it._

I bit my lip and shut my eyes tightly, before walking away without a word. I couldn't handle it. I didn't know Phil Coulson well, but my father spoke highly of his coworker Phil. I didn't know that Phil was an agent at the time, but he was a man. A man that had treated his friend's daughter with nothing but kindness, and now he's gone.

And I needed a few minutes to myself.

I made it back to my room pretty quickly, choosing to take less crowded halls to avoid the wounded agents being treated by medics. It was just another reminder of our failures. When I reached my bed, I glanced at the large yellow suitcase before deciding to completely ignore it. I walked into the bathroom and surveyed the visible damage to my face and arms. There was dried blood at the corner of my lip and along the side of my jaw where there was a cut that was still healing. I washed my hands and washed the blood away. I pulled my two-tone sweatshirt off and surveyed my stomach, finding nothing there but yellowing bruises. I wet a small facecloth and run it over my face slowly, the warm water soothing me as I went. I removed my jeans, leaving me in only my undergarments. There was nothing more than a few yellowing bruises. When I finished, I found the spare shirt I put in my knapsack and put that on. I knew that I couldn't put my nearly destroyed jeans back on, so I put on the yoga pants that Natasha gave me.

I made my way back to the bridge to join everyone else, after hearing his call to those left of us. When I got there, Steve and Tony were there, dressed in casual wear. I sat down across from Steve.

"We're dead in the air up here." He started. "Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor." I bit my lip as I think of my friend and the god that practically saved my life. "I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." Fury paused before sighing. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark and Silver know this, called _THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE_. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." I looked down at my hands, rubbing my finger across a small cut, trying to forget everything. Stark might have been feeling the same way, considering he stood up and walked out. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

I couldn't be here.

I just couldn't. Everything was falling apart and I didn't have the strength to sit through it. I left the room, and I didn't turn back when I heard Steve call my name.

It was just too much for me.

* * *

**Phil Coulson's supposed death. I figured that it didn't matter whether I left it canon or not, considering he comes back anyway in AoS. The Beginning of **_**The Battle of New York **_**is next! I can't wait to showcase all of her powers. She's really something.**

**Questions?**

**Comments?**

**Review!**

**REAL HUNTRESS18**


End file.
